Oneiric (film theory)
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| - | {{Template}}In a [[film theory]] context, the term '''oneiric''' (which means "pertaining to [[dream|dream]]") is used to refer the depiction of dream-like states in films, or to the use of the metaphor of a dream or the dream-state to analyze a film. The connection between dreams and films has been long established; "The dream factory" “...has become a household expression for the film industry”. The dream metaphor for film viewing is “one of the most persistent metaphors in both classical and modern film theory”, and it is used by film theorists using Freudian, non-Freudian, and semiotic analytical frameworks. | + | [[Image:Louis Janmot Nightmare.jpg|thumb|left|200px|''[[Poem of the Soul, Nightmare]]'' (1854 by Louis Janmot]] |
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| + | "In terms of [[film illusion]], [[transcendence]] involves a spiritual passage from the physicality of a seat in a darkened theater to the physicality of an imaginary [[time-space continuum]], whether devised by [[Walt Disney]] or [[Michael Snow]], [[Roberto Rossellini]] or [[Russ Meyer]]." --''[[Midnight Movies]]'' (1983), page 15-16 | ||
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| + | "The [[dream sequence]] in ''[[The Science of Sleep]]'' in which Stéphane's hands become giant was inspired by a recurring nightmare director [[Michel Gondry]] frequently had as a child."--Sholem Stein | ||
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| + | [[Image:The Sleep of Reason.jpg|thumb|right|200px|''[[The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters]]'' ]] | ||
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| + | In [[film theory]], the term '''oneiric''' refers to the depiction of [[dream]]-like states or to the use of the metaphor of a dream or the dream-state in the analysis of a film. The term comes from the Greek [[Oneiros|Óneiros]], the personification of dreams. | ||
| - | Filmmakers noted for their use of oneiric or dreamlike elements in their films include [[Luis Buñuel]], [[Wojciech Has]], [[Marx Brothers|the Marx Brothers]], [[Andrei Tarkovsky]], [[Lars von Trier]], [[Krzysztof Kieslowski]] (e.g., ''[[The Double Life of Véronique]]'') and [[David Lynch]] (e.g., ''[[Mulholland Drive (film)|Mulholland Drive]]''). Film genres or styles noted for their use of oneiric elements include [[film noir]] and [[surrealism|surrealist film]]s. | ||
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| - | The French surrealist playwright and director [[Antonin Artaud]] argued that the American [[burlesque]] genre, with its bizarre, lush costumes, and its mixture of dancing girls, comedians, mime artists and striptease artists, has oneiric qualities. | ||
| ==History== | ==History== | ||
| - | Early film theorists such as [[Ricciotto Canudo]] (1879-1923) [[Jean Epstein]] (1897-1953) argued that films had a dreamlike quality. Raymond Bellour and Guy Rosolato made psychoanalytical analogies between films and the dream state, and claimed that films have a ‘latent’ content that can be psychoanalyzed as if it were a dream. Italian film director [[Pier Paolo Pasolini]] argued that dreams carry messages using a common store of signs. Lydia Marinelli states that before the 1930s, psychoanalysts “...primarily attempted to apply the interpretative schemata found in [[Sigmund Freud]]'s ''Interpretation of Dreams'' to films.” More recently, Robert Eberwein has “...cull[ed] dream scenes from the entirety of cinematic history” to establish “...the validity of psychoanalytic terminology in the form of a taxonomy.” | + | Early film theorists such as [[Ricciotto Canudo]] (1879–1923) and [[Jean Epstein]] (1897–1953) argued that films had a dreamlike quality. Films and dreams are also connected in psychological analysis by examining the relationship between the cinema screening process and the spectator (who is perceived as passive). [[Roland Barthes]], a French literary critic and [[Semiotics|semiotician]], described film spectators as being in a "para-oneiric" state, feeling "sleepy and drowsy as if they had just woken up" when a film ends. Similarly, the French [[Surrealism|surrealist]] [[André Breton]] argues that film viewers enter a state between being "awake and falling asleep", what French filmmaker [[René Clair]] called a "dreamlike state". [[Jean Mitry]]'s first volume of ''[[Esthétique et psychologie du cinéma]]'' (1963) also discuss the connection between films and the dream state. |
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| - | Another way that films and dreams are connected in psychological analysis is by examining the interaction between the cinema exhibition process and the passive spectator. [[Roland Barthes]], a French literary critic and semiotician, described film spectators as being in a “para-oneiric” state, feeling “...sleepy and drowsy as if they had just woken up” when a film ends. Similarly, the French surrealist [[André Breton]] argues that film viewers enter a state between being “...awake and falling asleep,” what French filmmaker [[René Clair]] called a “dreamlike state.” [[Edgar Morin]]'s ''Le cinéma ou l'homme imaginaire'' (1956) and [[Jean Mitry]]'s first volume of ''Esthétique et psychologie du cinéma'' (1963) also discuss the connection between films and the dream state. | + | |
| - | In the 2000s, a graduate-level comparative literature course on oneiric aspects of film, entitled ''Dreamworks: Literature, Film, and the Oneiric'', is being taught at the University of Western Ontario by Paul Coates. Coates’ course assesses the “...widespread habit of comparing certain filmic and literary works to dreams” by examining “literary and filmic works usually described as having an ‘oneiric' quality,” including [[Mary Shelley]]'s ''Frankenstein''; [[Victor Erice]]'s The ''Spirit of the Beehive''; [[August Strindberg]]'s ''A Dream Play''; [[Ingmar Bergman]]'s ''[[Cries and Whispers]]''; [[Jean Cocteau]]'s ''Orphée''; [[Paul Leni]]'s ''Waxworks''; poems by [[Emily Dickinson]] and by Polish Symbolist [[Bolesław Leśmian]]. | + | ==Filmmakers== |
| + | Filmmakers described as using oneiric or dreamlike elements in their films include: | ||
| + | * [[Sergei Parajanov]] (e.g., ''[[Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors]]'') | ||
| + | * [[David Lynch]] (e.g., ''[[Twin Peaks]]'', ''[[Mulholland Drive (film)|Mulholland Drive]]'') | ||
| + | * [[Andrei Tarkovsky]] (e.g. ''[[Andrei Rublev (film)|Andrei Rublev]]'', ''[[Solaris (1972 film)|Solaris]]'') | ||
| + | * [[Stan Brakhage]] (e.g., ''[[Dog Star Man]]'') | ||
| + | * [[Michelangelo Antonioni]] (e.g. ''[[The Passenger (1975 film)|The Passenger]]'', ''[[Zabriskie Point (film)|Zabriskie Point]]'') | ||
| + | * [[Jaromil Jireš]] (e.g., ''[[Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (film)|Valerie and Her Week of Wonders]]'') | ||
| + | * [[Krzysztof Kieslowski]] (e.g. ''[[The Double Life of Veronique]]'') | ||
| + | * [[Federico Fellini]] (e.g., ''[[Amarcord]]'') | ||
| + | * [[Francis Ford Coppola]] (e.g., [[Apocalypse Now]]) | ||
| + | * [[Ingmar Bergman]] (e.g., ''[[Wild Strawberries (film)|Wild Strawberries]]'') | ||
| + | * [[Jean Cocteau]] (e.g., ''[[Orphic Trilogy]]'') | ||
| + | * [[Gaspar Noé|Gaspar No]][[André Breton|é]] (e.g. ''[[Enter the Void]]'', ''[[Love (2015 film)|Love]]'', ''[[Climax (2018 film)|Climax]]'') | ||
| + | * [[Raúl Ruiz (director)|Raúl Ruiz]] (e.g., ''[[City of Pirates]]'') | ||
| + | * [[Edgar G. Ulmer]] (e.g., ''[[The Black Cat (1934 film)|The Black Cat]]'') | ||
| + | * [[Jacques Tourneur]] (e.g., ''[[I Walked With a Zombie]]'') | ||
| + | * [[Maya Deren]] (e.g., ''[[Meshes of the Afternoon]]'') | ||
| + | * [[Wojciech Has]] | ||
| + | * [[Kenneth Anger]] | ||
| + | ==Linking in in 2024== | ||
| + | [[Aguirre, the Wrath of God]], [[City of Pirates]], [[Dark at Noon]], [[Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster]], [[Dream art]], [[Enter the Void]], [[Film noir]], [[Fluffer]], [[Inception]], [[Klara Milich]], [[Life Is a Dream (1986 film)]], [[Litoral (film)]], [[Mirror (1975 film)]], [[Mundane science fiction]], [[Neo-Baroque film]], [[Oneiric]], [[Possessed (1947 film)]], [[Psychology of film]], [[Raúl Ruiz (director)]], [[Salto (film)]], [[Surrealist cinema]], [[The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford]], [[The Big Sleep (1946 film)]], [[The Blind Owl (film)]], [[The Blood of a Poet]], [[The Story of Marie and Julien]], [[Three Crowns of the Sailor]], [[Tommy Westphall]], [[Treasure Island (1986 film)]], [[W.E.]] | ||
| - | == References == | + | ==See also== |
| - | :"[[Kyrou]] has recognised traces of oneirism not only in experimental cinema, but also in the musical, thriller, horror, and in much comic cinema (for instance, the Marx Brothers, Helzapoppin, and Jerry Lewis)." | + | * [[Art film]] |
| - | *Ado Kyrou. ''Le surréalisme au cinéma'' (1963), cited by Laura Rascaroli in ''Like a Dream: A Critical History of the Oneiric Metaphor in Film Theory''. Fall 2002. http://www.kinema.uwaterloo.ca/rasc022.htm .{{GFDL}} | + | * [[Dream art]] |
| + | * [[Dream vision]] | ||
| + | * [[Experimental film]] | ||
| + | * [[Oneiric]] | ||
| + | * ''[[Borowczyk: Cinéaste onirique]]'' (1981) | ||
| + | {{GFDL}} | ||
Current revision
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"In terms of film illusion, transcendence involves a spiritual passage from the physicality of a seat in a darkened theater to the physicality of an imaginary time-space continuum, whether devised by Walt Disney or Michael Snow, Roberto Rossellini or Russ Meyer." --Midnight Movies (1983), page 15-16 "The dream sequence in The Science of Sleep in which Stéphane's hands become giant was inspired by a recurring nightmare director Michel Gondry frequently had as a child."--Sholem Stein |
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Related e |
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Featured: |
In film theory, the term oneiric refers to the depiction of dream-like states or to the use of the metaphor of a dream or the dream-state in the analysis of a film. The term comes from the Greek Óneiros, the personification of dreams.
Contents |
[edit]
History
Early film theorists such as Ricciotto Canudo (1879–1923) and Jean Epstein (1897–1953) argued that films had a dreamlike quality. Films and dreams are also connected in psychological analysis by examining the relationship between the cinema screening process and the spectator (who is perceived as passive). Roland Barthes, a French literary critic and semiotician, described film spectators as being in a "para-oneiric" state, feeling "sleepy and drowsy as if they had just woken up" when a film ends. Similarly, the French surrealist André Breton argues that film viewers enter a state between being "awake and falling asleep", what French filmmaker René Clair called a "dreamlike state". Jean Mitry's first volume of Esthétique et psychologie du cinéma (1963) also discuss the connection between films and the dream state.
[edit]
Filmmakers
Filmmakers described as using oneiric or dreamlike elements in their films include:
- Sergei Parajanov (e.g., Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors)
- David Lynch (e.g., Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive)
- Andrei Tarkovsky (e.g. Andrei Rublev, Solaris)
- Stan Brakhage (e.g., Dog Star Man)
- Michelangelo Antonioni (e.g. The Passenger, Zabriskie Point)
- Jaromil Jireš (e.g., Valerie and Her Week of Wonders)
- Krzysztof Kieslowski (e.g. The Double Life of Veronique)
- Federico Fellini (e.g., Amarcord)
- Francis Ford Coppola (e.g., Apocalypse Now)
- Ingmar Bergman (e.g., Wild Strawberries)
- Jean Cocteau (e.g., Orphic Trilogy)
- Gaspar Noé (e.g. Enter the Void, Love, Climax)
- Raúl Ruiz (e.g., City of Pirates)
- Edgar G. Ulmer (e.g., The Black Cat)
- Jacques Tourneur (e.g., I Walked With a Zombie)
- Maya Deren (e.g., Meshes of the Afternoon)
- Wojciech Has
- Kenneth Anger
[edit]
Linking in in 2024
Aguirre, the Wrath of God, City of Pirates, Dark at Noon, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Dream art, Enter the Void, Film noir, Fluffer, Inception, Klara Milich, Life Is a Dream (1986 film), Litoral (film), Mirror (1975 film), Mundane science fiction, Neo-Baroque film, Oneiric, Possessed (1947 film), Psychology of film, Raúl Ruiz (director), Salto (film), Surrealist cinema, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Big Sleep (1946 film), The Blind Owl (film), The Blood of a Poet, The Story of Marie and Julien, Three Crowns of the Sailor, Tommy Westphall, Treasure Island (1986 film), W.E.
[edit]
See also
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Oneiric (film theory)" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
